Raising Happy Healthy Kids!

7 Ways to Make your Gifts Look Amazing!

Do you ever come up with a great idea for a homemade gift, but you can’t figure out how to make it look cute when you give it? Here are 7 ways to make your gifts look amazing!

One Christmas when I was little, my mom let my sister and I help her make a bunch of candy for our relatives. She had these cute little gingerbread house shaped boxes to pack them in and we used popped popcorn for packing peanuts for the shipping the gift. This year I made a bunch of yummy candy for a gift for my daycare parents and a few friends, and when my daughter came for a visit, we made some homemade chocolate covered cherries just like I made with my mom.

7 Ways to Make your Gifts Look Amazing!

I made a lot of old-fashioned treats this year for a nostalgic feeling of fun. I bought some big pretzels and dipped them in white chocolate, and then drizzled chocolate on top to make them look awesome. I bought my melting chocolate for all of these candies from Ghirardelli so it would be extra delicious! The pretzels looked amazing.

Next, I took some soft peppermint sticks and cracked them into small pieces and mixed them into some melted chocolate. I spread it out on a piece of foil to cool and drizzled white chocolate on them. After they hardened I broke them up into pieces. Then I melted some more chocolate and mixed in some rice krispies and spooned them into candy papers. They turned out really yummy! I love a yummy gift!

Next, we did the cherries. Take well-drained cherries and freeze them and wrap them in fondant. Freeze them again and dip them in melted chocolate. The fondant recipe I used is here. I used butter instead of margarine because I don’t cook with margarine, but the rest I did as directed. Making these with Kayla was super fun because it was a fond memory for me and now I have it with her too.

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Packaging candy gifts to look amazing

There are several ways you can package one or two small pieces of candy. You can use them as additions to the bow, or give them as a small gesture to someone. Here are a few cute ideas.

If you want to give a larger amount, here are a few ways they can be packaged up.

For my daycare parents, I put an assortment of peppermint bark and krispie rice candies in a dish and then added a stack of the giant pretzels. Then I sat them in a cellophane bag and wrapped them up and tied them with a bow. I put a trinket or spreading knife in each bow to make it look super cute.

I went to the dollar tree where everything is only a dollar and found several cute containers to package gifts in. I packaged candy and homemade gingerbread cookies in several of them and they turned out great. I wrapped a little ribbon or raffia on each one and added a candy cane or something in some of the bows. They are so festive and fun, I love them.

I also got this adorable little bowl and some bread pans from Walmart and they made some very cute packages.

Using cute dishes to package gifts

I made some banana bread in the loaf pans. They were my favorite of all. There were tiny ones and regular sized ones, I made two of each.

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Mason jars for gift wrapping

Another gift I made was homemade spice mixes such as ranch dip seasoning, taco mix, and Italian seasoning. I made the Italian with herbs we grew in the garden this year. At the end of the season, before the garden froze, I cut down all the herbs and dried them in the dehydrator and in paper bags. For the recipe for ranch dip seasoning, click here. For taco mix, click here. And for how to dry your own herbs, click here.

I packaged these mixes in cute mason jars and cut out a piece of scrapbook paper to decorate the top. I took the top of the jar, traced it on the paper and cut it out, then placed the seal on the jar, the paper cut out on top of it, and then the band to hold it on. I used jeans and bandana prints going for the old-fashioned look. I tied a bow around the ring band made of raffia.

You can also package the mixes in individual servings with a cute cardstock and they are super cute. Check out how to do that here.

Dressing up your homemade vanilla

Next, I worked on packaging up my homemade vanilla. I sealed the bottles with a shrink wrap seal that is heated with a hairdryer and shrinks to fit the bottle, then tied another cute raffia bow around it to make it look special.

Here is what the seal looks like preshrinking.

One more fun gift idea I used is a great idea for anyone starting out, new moms, newlyweds, college students, new graduators, anyone. I would love to receive it. I packaged up new towels and laundry supplies in a laundry basket.

I love how this turned out. I tucked a few toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste in for color.

You can even make your own homemade bows. My daughter made these from reclaimed Christmas paper of years past and she has a post that shows how to make them here. I used them on all of my wrapped packages this year. Lucky me. They are cute as a button!

She shares many ways to reduce waste at Christmas, which I always try to do. You can check the ideas out here.

You can also click here to see some great GREEN gifts for the holidays! Christmas is one of the most wasteful times of year, so I love reusable packaging and eco friendly gift ideas.

There are many inexpensive ways you can make a gift look super special. Do you have any great ideas to share? I would love to hear them.

I just found them online by searching for shrink wrap bottle seals. They are for wine bottles so I had to search to find ones that didn’t have grapes or something on top. 🙂 Thanks so much for checking it out!

Love the recycled bows! That’s a great idea and they look adorable.
I love a good packaging idea. I went to the dollar store to buy containers to wrap my son’s gifts in–he complained that round gifts never had items from his wish list and were probably clothes (sad trombone); so I wrapped everything I could in a cylinder.